Many observers cite five percent as an industry benchmark for proportion of paying customers against free users in a freemium service environment. That’s exactly what Spotify has.

But, from a pre-paywall readership of 20 million unique monthly users, to a base of 105,000 cumulative reader payments in the last four months, The Times has encouraged just 0.5 percent of its online audience at most to pay.

Consider that only half of these subscribe, as opposed to pay per day, and you see that just 0.25 percent of The Times’ online audience have become regular customers.